Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

[ Table of Contents ] [ Map ] [ Glossary ]

CHAPTER II

South Sea Islands Ahead

AMASA WAS GIVEN THE JOB of putting the damaged Danish ship in shape to go to sea. He signed up brother Samuel as his foreman. A midshipman and three foremast hands of the Massachusetts who hadn't hurried away after the sale of the ship were also signed.

No spare timber or ship metals were to be had in China, so Amasa searched foreign ships at the Whampoa anchorage for repair materials. He found American ships to be the best equipped with spare parts.

After making a good job of putting the Dutch ship in order, Amasa felt competent to advise master mariners in the matter of forelaying against a damaged ship in the China trade:

Ship masters bound to China should provide a surplus of materials requisite for ship repairs, to be enabled to assist each other in this respect, and also to find a profitable market for the material left or not needed for their own use. Such surplus material should consist of timber, from 20 to 50 feet long 12 inches wide and 7 to 8 inches thick, and large and small long spars for lower and upper masts; also oak and pine plank, pine boards, sheet copper, nails, bolt rods, large bar iron, spikes of S various sizes, hemp rope, canvas, blocks, anchors, cables, any thing else at the discretion of experienced and practical men.

Stranded seafarers in foreign ports in those days did much bouncing around from one flag to another. The midshipman and foremast hands of the Massachusetts signed on the repaired ship for her home voyage, home in her case meaning Copenhagen.

Collecting furs from the Indians of our northwest coast and trading them in Canton for teas and silks was a flourishing business. White men had been massacred wholesale by the Indians of that northwest coast, but the profits were enormous to the men who came through. Brother Samuel signed with an American ship, the Grace, Captain Douglass, for a cruise to the dangerous coast. He and Amasa were to meet in Duxbury later; and they so met, but not soon.

Amasa wasn't for heading homeward yet. Here he was in the Far East waters, and here he intended to stay for another while. He took a run down to Macao.

An eye-filling port, Macao, with a view rivaling the famed harbor of Naples for beauty. That about the beauty of Naples wasn't Amasa's observation. It came from shipmasters who had sailed the Mediterranean, Amasa himself having never got nearer Naples than Lisbon in Portugal. Macao was where the foreign factory officers in Canton liked to go for the hot summer months. Many of Amasa's Dutch and English Canton friends were already there. Handsome residences aplenty faced the lovely harbor; and by all the gossip, high jinks were doing in some of them.

By night and day things were happening. Chinese bandits used to ride in from the hills for what pickings might be lying around for them. And hands from the pirate junks outside would drift in to get the word of ships soon to be sailing their way. Amasa recalled that four men of the Massachusetts had been murdered in Macao while she lay there fixing it up with the customs people to let her proceed to Canton. All told, nineteen of the Massachusetts crew had been killed or drowned at sea, or murdered or died of disease, between her departure from Boston and her sale in Canton.

A place for a novel of romance, Macao; but it was the shipping life that stirred Amasa's imagination. Every day ships were coming and going. Take it this day: A fleet of English East Indiamen under convoy of two English frigates--the fifty-gun Leopard and the Thames--were getting under way. Soundings and bearings, what to avoid and what to look for making out of the harbor--that would be their navigator's troubles for a beginning of their long voyage to London.

Quite a few of the friends, Dutch and English mostly, Amasa had made in Canton were now pleasuring in Macao. He was glad to meet them again, even though meeting them entailed a heavy expense to Amasa. He had to return courtesy with fair courtesy, and by and by he found it behooving him to get a job.

Among his good friends were several who besought him to take up quarters with them. Amasa chose the invitation to bunk in with an English supercargo, a Richard Freeman, because of the respect he had paid to the remains of an American friend, a Captain Parker, who had died of a fever.

Through the Englishman Freeman, Amasa met Commodore McCluer, a British naval officer in the pay of an expedition of exploration of the far eastern islands. He had just arrived from Bombay, and, having lost several officers by sickness along the road, he was hunting Macao for replacements.

Amasa had been given a great name as a navigator by the officers of the Massachusetts. McCluer had word of that, and he had word too of the fine job Amasa had made of repairing that damaged Danish ship at Whampoa. Obviously a competent all-around man, this young American Captain Delano. The commodore also liked the American's friendly ways. To Amasa he now said: "You would be a very useful man to me as my ship's navigator and as a ship conditioner, and as a deck officer on occasions. If agreeable to you I will commission you as a leftenant for my ship, the Panther. You will be subject only to my direct commands."

The Panther and a consort, the Endeavour, were to sail for a two or three years' cruise of discovery and exploration among the islands. The outlook pleased Amasa. He looked over the Panther; and noting the well-built, well-conditioned craft she was, he said yes to the commodore and stowed his gear in the cabin quarters allotted him.

Amasa found himself shipmates with a cabin load of British naval officers, and what English and Americans had been saying of each other during the war wasn't making for savory reminiscence aboard the Panther. And officers subordinate to Amasa were not enjoying having to take orders from an American, who was also younger than most of them. The older officers had a lot of fun with him, addressing him as Mister Jonathan by way of a beginning; but there was no holding out against Amasa's gift for making friends; and who, whether navigator or watch officer, very well knew his duty, and went leaping always to that duty.

Eventually, the English officers became his good ship- mates. And friendly Amasa records:

They found in me a man able and willing to do my duty at all times and in any capacity. I found in them gentlemen who were just and generous; and after the prejudice was removed, which had arisen from my admission as an officer among them, and from my character as an American, with all the rankling memories of the late war, they were kind and cordial to me, and I was more happy than I had been in any service before.'

Amasa's first duty as navigator was to lay the ship's course for the Pelew (Palau now) Islands. They were a group of small islands to the eastward of the Philippines (eastward for a ship sailing from China).

On the run to the Pelews, a long run, Amasa's officer shipmates, even after accepting him in full as a full ship- mate, were still for having fun with him. He was twenty- eight years of age, in several ways still young for his age, and still a trustful soul who believed almost anything told him. And his officer shipmates told him stories aplenty of: the strange sights he would see in the islands they would be putting into.

Amasa was a great one for keeping eyes open for strange sights. The expedition put in to a small island along the road for wood and water. In those sailing days, ship captains in those eastern seas were always putting in to strange places for supplies of wood and water; especially for water, the tropic heat demanding copious allowances to a ship's company.

At this island Lieutenant Drummond and Dr. Nickerson had charge of the first day's shore party. Returning that night, they told Amasa confidentially that while ashore they had discovered what looked to them like gold ore. They showed him a specimen, a stone with yellow specks in it.

When Amasa asked why they were so secret about it, they replied that they feared the ridicule of their brother officers if their specimen should not prove to be the real thing. If Jonathan would gather other likely specimens while ashore, they could compare them and then look further into the matter.

Next day it was Amasa's turn to take charge of the wood and water party; and he was for gathering gold ore specimens. Drummond and Nickerson lent him a large canvas bag to hold his specimens. They also dug out a Malabar boy from among the crew for a guide.

Amasa mustered his shore party, landed at the watering place, turned the command over to a midshipman, handed his canvas bag to the Malabar boy, shouldered his musket, and set out on his hunt for gold. For the first few miles the going wasn't too bad, the scenery being delightful and the water of the river way they traversed being only knee deep.

But the grade was growing steeper; the river was breaking into falls, the large and small round stones in the riverbed were roiling over under his feet and giving him many a toss.

The Malabar boy guide did not know a word of English, but the jokers back aboard ship had not told Amasa that, and they had instructed the boy through a ship's interpreter to answer Amasa's every question by pointing up the river. A dozen times Amasa said: "Which way now?" and always the boy pointed up the river.

Amasa kept plugging cheerily along, but the Malabar boy was finding the going too tough. Every once in a while he would pull up, emit a loud squawk, and sit down on the bank of the river. Amasa, who could walk all day and night, would ask him what was wrong, but the boy's responses were always beyond Amasa's understanding.

After three hours of rough travel the river branched into two streams. "Which way now?" asked Amasa? Between signs and strange words the boy made him understand that he had never been up that river before. He had never been on that island before.

Amasa then came awake.

He sat on a rock in the middle of the little river, "to avoid being stung or bitten by the numerous insects and reptiles that destroy a discoverer's peace," and took time out to ponder the situation.

The trick was a severe one for me, but my ardor and credulity were fairly chargeable to myself. I determined to draw from the adventure the lessons of wisdom and prudence, which it was calculated to afford me for future application.

He was always a serious soul; and here he was now, lost in a wilderness, perhaps a dangerous wilderness. Further meditation while sitting on the rock in the running stream resulted in the first of the moralizations that he so frequently thereafter sandwiched between his paragraphs on soundings and bearings and other observations useful to navigators in strange waters:

When I was seated in perfect silence on a rock in the river, and could hear the echo of the waters through the awful stillness of that wilderness mingled with the unintelligible cries of anxiety from the poor Malabar boy, and realized that I was at an almost unmeasurable distance from my country and in the service of a foreign power, and now in a savage spot where the natives might be every moment upon…

He wasn't exactly frightened--he was no easily frightened one ever-- and sitting there on the rock in the river he recalled that Commodore McCluer was strong for his officers' discovering things on land; so now he began making notes of the flora and fauna he met with during the expedition among the islands. He brightened up, headed back downriver, and made notes also of the scenery along the river. He shot birds, as he progressed: some handsome birds among them, especially a blue pigeon, three times the size of the pigeons back home. He loaded the Malabar boy's bag with the strange birds.

Meantime, the midshipman left in charge of the landing party, having gathered all the wood and water the boats would hold, had leisure to worry about Jonathan and the Malabar boy, especially Jonathan. What was detaining him? Drummond and Nickerson aboard the ship were also wondering and worrying. It was coming dark, and from the ship they could see no sign of Amasa and the Malabar boy. They were still adrift somewhere on the island. And no country, that, to be adrift. Nobody aboard the ship had ever before even seen the island. No knowing what breed of savages might be tucked away on it, peering out from the woods, perhaps only waiting a chance to leap out on an unsuspecting Jonathan and the Malabar boy.

Amasa eventually hove into view, his gun ashoulder and the Malabar boy astern, the boy borne down by the weight of Amasa's bag of strange birds. Drummond and Nickerson hurried into a boat to meet Amasa on the beach; and they brought with them a liberal ration of food and liquor to restore his good nature and satisfy what by now must be a ravenous appetite.

Amasa held no hard feelings. Except for a large centipede, which bit the back of his neck, he would have called it a fine day. His neck swelled and he spent a night of pain.

The swelling and pain lasted three days, during which Amasa turned his mental observations of the island's flora and fauna and gorgeous scenery into several pages of written notes for the benefit of Commodore McCluer, this because of his saying that he always encouraged his officers to take notes of their discoveries in strange lands. What use the commodore made of his notes, Amasa never was told.

Now it happened that the island was inhabited by savages. On the second night, the two vessels being still at moorings there, the Panther's anchor watch reported a fire on the island. The commodore ordered a boat party ashore to investigate it. The party took along a native of the Pelew islands by the name of Cockawocky as a possible interpreter. The boat party came on a group of undressed savages around a fire in a clearing in the woods. Cockawocky crept close to discover what they were at. The savages discovered him and ran away. Cockawocky shouted that he meant no harm, but they kept on going. Amasa decided that Cockawocky's manner had scared them. "He was a Pelew Islander who had come aboard the Panther in Macao. His name, as it sounds, was indicative of his character; for he was a forward, blustering officious fellow, quite unlike his countrymen generally as I found them to be later."

The flying islanders of that night were Amasa's first sight of eastern sea savages.

As a boy back home, Amasa liked to hunt. Also he had liked to eat. He still liked to hunt and to eat. He talked the commodore into allowing Drummond and himself to visit a bay in the island to hunt turtles. Turtle soup! Ah-h! The commodore assigned two boats to the turtle hunt and named Amasa to take charge of one boat and Mr. Drummond the other.

Drummond selected his party and went off. Amasa called the ship's bosun and told him to gather a party of volunteers for the turtle hunt and assure them that he would requisition food and grog aplenty for the expedition. The bosun assembled a party of volunteers.

Now the bosun was the only other American in the expedition, yet from their first day at sea he had acted like a man who meant to obey no orders of Lieutenant Delano's if he could avoid it. Unsuspicious Amasa was the last officer of the ship to awake to the bosun's ill- humor. When he did come awake to it he felt compelled to check him. Thereafter, when he caught the bosun scamping a bit of ship's duty Amasa would order him to do that duty over again.

The bosun's usual reaction was to murmur that he had never been compelled to do his work twice over before. Amasa's regular reply was that his own duty was to see that his orders were strictly carried out. Amasa was never slow to admit to his brother officers that the bosun was skillful at his duty when he chose to do it; but also, he would add, the man was vain of his ability and his importance in the ship's company. That the bosun was in good favor with Commodore McCluer did not influence Amasa to ease up on him. High or low, Amasa treated them all alike. When he gave a man an order, that man carried it out or heard from Amasa.

Now Amasa had not invited the bosun to join his party this day. He had only told him to assemble a boat's crew of volunteers; but when the boat shoved off, there was the bosun in the boat. A curious procedure, that. It wasn't customary for the ship's bosun to do duty in a boat party; but here he was. Amasa was no suspicious one, but he was always for thinking things out. What was the bosun meaning now in forcing his way into the boat party?

He could have ordered the bosun out of the boat and back aboard the ship, but he did not. He had a thought that the bosun was trying to make up to him. If so, then the companionship of the turtle hunt would result in a better feeling between them; and so he allowed the bosun to come along.

The bay where Amasa hoped to find turtles had a narrow entrance. The boy of his party was instructed to take the boat off a short distance, let go her grapnel, and stay by her until Amasa should call him to the beach, which would be when Amasa had bad his fill of turtle hunting and was ready to return to the ship.

Amasa had brought along two muskets and ammunition, thinking to get a shot at a wild hog. He now gave one musket and half his ammunition to the bosun, and ordered him and the others of his party to scatter and beat up the shore of the bay. Amasa stationed himself at the mouth of the bay, hoping to head off any turtles coming that way.

After holding his station for three hours, and no turtles heaving into view, Amasa walked around the beach to see what his people were doing. He saw none of them. He called to the boat boy, who answered that neither had he seen any of them.

After three hours more of waiting Amasa walked the beach again. He saw nobody. He walked the beach once more. Still nobody. It being then dark night, he curled up on the beach at the mouth of the bay and waited for daylight. At sunup he again patrolled the beach. Still nobody.

Something curious was going on, and what could it be? He left the beach, moving now with eyes and ears alert, reverting to the game- tracking technique of his young days back home. He discovered a path leading into the woods. He followed the path and came upon his boat's crew in a clearing. They were seated in close formation, as if in conference.

Amasa let himself be discovered. They leaped to their feet, obviously surprised and disconcerted. Amasa questioned the bosun, demanding to know where he and all the others had been all night.

The bosun's answer was in a muffled voice. Amasa ordered him to speak up. The bosun's voice cleared, but what he said brought no enlightenment to Amasa. He ordered them all to go back to the bay entrance and get into the boat. All this while Amasa held his cocked gun with his trigger finger ready for instant action. The bosun was holding his gun in the same fashion.

Amasa pointed for them to go before him, and in single column they marched the beach to a point opposite where their boat was anchored. Once the bosun ran to one side and lay down on the ground and sighted his gun as if to shoot at an object in the bush.

"Don't play the fool," called Amasa. "Get up and get along to the boat."

Amasa got them all back to the ship without further trouble. He put none of the party on report, but bided his time to get the truth of it. The particular pal of the bosun was a gunner of the ship, and this gunner had been chosen by the bosun as one of Amasa's boat party. The bosun and the gunner fell out; and the gunner then came to Amasa with the story of the bosun and the turtle hunt episode.

The bosun had been topside American of the expedition before Amasa joined it at Macao; and he did not like being relegated to second American of the expedition. When Amasa asked the bosun to pick a boat's crew for that turtle hunt, the bosun immediately planned to maroon Amasa on the island. For Amasa's party he included only those who would do his bidding. When Amasa detailed himself to stand watch alone, the bosun gathered his gang, led them into the bush, and spent the night planning how to get rid of Amasa. When one of the party put in the word that Mr. Delano had the name of being a determined man, a man not easily frightened, and he had a musket and the name of being a good shot with it, the bosun retorted that he was no timid soul himself, and he too was a good shot, and he also had a musket, he would use it on Mr. Delano before he would be awake to what he had in mind to do.

All except one man in the party agreed to the bosun's plan. The one man was Gibbs, a sail maker. He balked at the plan to murder Mr. Delano. It was his objection that bad kept them arguing all night in the bush; and so it happened that Amasa came on them while they were still arguing about how to get rid of him.

The conspiracy against Amasa was brought out before a court of the Panther's officers; and they proposed to Amasa that the bosun be confined aboard ship, then put ashore at the first English port, there to be dealt with according to law.

Softhearted Amasa demurred to that, saying that after all the bosun had not intended to take his life if he could have got him out of the way without taking it; and inasmuch as the bosun filled an important billet aboard the ship, why not continue him in duty, under strict observation of course, so that nobody's life would be endangered thereafter? Said Amasa in explanation:

"Pride of magnanimity, the calculation of interest for the expedition, and other motives may have mingled with my hope of the bosun's reformation, and conciliation to induce me to take his part. The council considered the matter, and after three of the party were well flogged, they complied with my request."